Educational Tours & Materials

The Ybor City Museum Society has designed a number of resources to help continue the learning process for visitors of all ages. We are constantly working to expand our offerings, so please check back often to see what new and exciting resources we have developed for you!

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The Ybor City Museum State Park provides a fun and educational experience to school groups. While visiting the Museum, students will learn about significant people in Ybor City’s history, important events and places that helped shape the area, and discover what it was like to live in Ybor City at the turn of the last century.

Important information about tours of the Ybor City Museum State Park:

1. Touring the Museum is free for educational groups and their chaperones. The group teacher or leader will need to present a fee waiver letter at the time of the visit. A sample fee waiver letter is included in the downloadable Field Trip Guide. The waiver letter covers one chaperone per every ten students, and any additional chaperones will need to pay the regular $4 entry fee.

2. This tour is best suited for students Grade 4 and above.

3. The Museum can accommodate groups of up to 60 students per day. Groups larger than 60 will need to split their visit between two different days.

4. Each group has an allotted time slot for their tour, and if your group arrives late the Museum cannot guarantee that your group will receive the full tour experience. The Museum often has many groups scheduled on a given day and may not be able to allow your tour to run past its scheduled time slot.

Teachers, please download the Field Trip Guide below for more information and all necessary forms, as well as some lessons to incorporate prior to your visit.

Ybor City in the Classroom Lesson Plans

The Ybor City Museum Society has created a series of in-class activities to either supplement your class trip to the Musuem or to teach students about Ybor City if you are unable to take a trip to the Museum. Activites have been created for grades 4-8 that are realted to three themes: the growth of the Ybor City community, immigration and Ybor City and the unique words of Ybor City. Each activity is aligned with Florida State Standards.

New! City Ties Program

Educators, are you looking for classroom activities that relate to your field trip or local social studies content?

The Ybor City Musuem State Park and Henry B. Plant Museum have partnered to bring you the City Ties Activity! We want to make the unique histories of Ybor City and Tampa, as well as their ties, more accessible to you and your students.

To help students make the connection between Ybor and Tampa, the City Ties Tour is designed to offer a one-day field trip opportunity to the Ybor City Musuem State Park and the Henry B. Plant Museum.

Start your morning at the Ybor City Museum State Park to learn about the founding and evolution of Ybor City and the cigar industry, and tour the restored home of a cigar worker. Continue your journey to the Henry B. Plant Museum to experience life in the Gilded Age at the opulaent Tampa Bay Hotel and learn how Henry Plant influenced the developement of Tampa.

The City Ties Activity can be used as classroom lessons, independent learning to build upon social studies content, or as pre- or post-City Ties Tour field trip content.

To schedule a City Ties Tour, please contact Heather Trubee Brown at 813.258.7304 or htrubee@ut.edu

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Reader’s Corner

If you are interested in learning more about what it was like in Ybor City 100 years ago, then you will enjoy "The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885 – 1985 by Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta". This thorough and entertaining selection, referred to as “A masterpiece of local historical writing” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Russel Nye, outlines the evolution of Ybor City, and by extension Tampa, into an urban center. Mormino and Pozzetta skillfully recount immigrant life in the factories and businesses of Ybor, immigrants' social interactions and their reactions to national and international events. If you’ve ever wondered how Tampa came to have such a diverse ethnic makeup and unique cultural character, this book is for you!

This wonderful book is just one of many available at our Museum Store.